The Third Degree
by Jean Swift
Summary: Sasuke and Sakura have hid their relationship from the world, but will they be successful in keeping it hidden?


**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

Sakura sat in front of the mirror and applied one last coating of her 'cherry-luscious' gloss.

She looked up at the sound of the bathroom door opening and had to remind herself to not drool because out stepped Sasuke looking like a living breathing character from her most erotic wet dream with a towel slung low over his hips, tantalisingly displaying just the starting lines of the 'v' and leaving everything else to the imagination. His entrance into the room was accompanied by thin puffs of steam adding further effect to the mysterious aura that always surrounded him, not to mention the absolutely sexy way his hair was mussed up and falling into his eyes from the towel rub and not defying gravity as per usual.

So maybe she did drool a bit. No one could blame her really, it wasn't really surprising that two months into their relationship and she was still not used to Sasuke's absolute... sexiness - there was no other, more dictionary-worthy word for it.

He caught her eyes and smirked. Blushing, she quickly looked away; she really wasn't going to get used to these perks and candidness of being in a relationship with him anytime soon.

"You-you should get d-dressed", oh dear lord she was becoming as bad as Hinata now with the stuttering, "We can't be anymore late and then arrive together to the mission meeting. I think even Kakashi sensei must have arrived by now, plus I think he is starting to suspect something and he will be unbearable during the mission if he realises it. I mean, he is just looking for an excuse to spread his knowledge gained from those infernal books of his around and it would be pretty bad if he started giving you tips.." she was babbling now and the scenarios she had constructed in her head were just making her blush harder.

She was so busy trying to look anywhere but at him that she didn't notice him come up behind her. She looked up in surprise when she felt his hand on her head, his lips were stretched in a small and tender smile. It was the softest expression she had ever seen on his face. He ruffled her hair slightly messing it up, but she didn't mind, not at all. The he turned and walked away, just like that, leaving her to stare off in space where he had stood with a slightly dazed expression.

After what seemed like just seconds she heard him calling and turned around to see him fully dressed and ready to leave. _Was I out for that long?_

"Sakura," he repeated," I am leaving first."

She nodded, a goofy smile budding on her face. He raised his eyebrows and her smile bloomed into a grin. Seeing this his own lips twitched into an answering smile. Then slowly shaking his head at her antics he walked out of the room, the smile still hovering on his lips.

Sakura basked in the warmth bubbling in her chest and stomach for a while, then just as she heard the front door open she got an idea.

"Sasuke-kun, wait!" she yelled dashing after him. Sasuke was standing in the doorway waiting for her, she stopped in front of him and then raising herself on her tip-toes she pressed her lips to his cheek. He stiffened, she withdrew, used to his awkwardness with affection. "Bye, Sasuke-kun", he was still staring at her with a slightly bewildered expression on his face. She turned around to head back to her room, only to have him snag her wrist and wrench her towards him. She stared at him with wide eyes and opened her mouth to question him but he lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers.

She couldn't believe what was happening , Sasuke hardly ever initiated any kind of intimacy, but before she could question it any further her brain shut down when he moved his lips over hers, slowly. Her eyelids fluttered close when he pulled her bottom lip between his own and sucked gently coaxing a moan out of her then bit on it gently and when she gasped he slid his tongue into her mouth and she was lost to reality.

After what seemed like hours he pulled away and gazed down at her dazed expression and thoroughly kissed lips with smug male satisfaction and pride. Then bending down again he nuzzled the junction between her ear and neck and Sakura strongly suspected that he was sniffing her. "Bye Sakura", he whispered and with a playful nip of her earlobe he was out of the door.

Sakura didn't move from that position for five whole minutes.

* * *

><p>Sasuke flash-stepped through the roofs towards the Hokage tower, but his mind was still with the pink haired girl and he felt that his heart too was with her. His eyes softened as he remembered her blushing face when she pecked his cheek, it was such a simple sweet gesture that his heart had constricted and his stomach had filled with this warm feeling that seemed to sprout up whenever he was with her. His mother was the last person who had treated him with such genuine warmth and affection and that had been a <em>long<em> time ago. He could get used to this.

He stopped outside the Hokage's office and took a moment to set his face into his usual blank mask, then without much ceremony he entered the room - and immediately ducked lest he was brained by the paperweight that came flying at his head and then promptly shattered when it hit the door.

"YOU ARE LATE", two blondes shouted angrily in unison - the hokage and the future hokage.

Sasuke straightened and nonchalantly brushed off any stray shards of the now broken paperweight that may have landed on him and replied with his usual, "Hn."

"Show some respect you brat!" Tsunade a nerve twitching on her forehead, growled, then turning towards the silver-haired jounin standing in a corner she gritted out, "It is all your fault Kakashi, you are a bad influence!", then back at Sasuke, "And where is Sakura?!"

Sasuke carefully kept his face a blank mask and lifted a shoulder in a small shrug. The twitch on the hokage's forehead seemed to be getting worse, " See Kakashi, I let my student train with you _once _and she is even more late than you!"

Kakashi's lone visible eye crinkled in a smile, "Ne Tsunade-sama, you forget, Sakura was my student first."

Both Naruto and Sasuke looked at Kakashi in bemusement, had the man no instinct of self-preservation? Tsunade picked up another paperweight warningly from a pile of papers but luckily Naruto rushed between the two, "Ne, ne, Baa-chan, no need to get angry. I am sure Sakura-chan must be on her way", he looked at Sasuke with a 'Save-Our-Soul' sign shining in his eyes, "Right Sasuke?"

Sighing irritably Sasuke slowly advanced towards the desk, all the while planning an excuse for Sakura, "She must have been working late at the hospital again and overslept", he intoned in a quiet voice.

Tsunade glanced at him annoyed, then turned back to Kakashi before her eyes swivelled back to him in surprise. Her eyebrows rose and nearly disappeared into her hairline. Wondering at her expression both Kakashi and Naruto also turned towards him and after a slight moment of scrutiny identical expressions of disbelief spread across their faces, Naruto's jaw fell open in comical slow motion.

Disconcerted Sasuke's brow furrowed, "What?" he growled.

All three just blinked, their eyes stuck in the shape of a saucer.

"_What_?!" he repeated, his temper rising quickly.

Something that felt an awful lot like anxiousness starting gnawing in Sasuke's stomach, after all it wasn't like Naruto to lose his tongue in _any _situation. He was a blabbermouth and that was as much a fact as Tsunade's being a drunkard was.

Finally, Naruto raised a trembling hand, almost unconsciously and pointed at him.

Sasuke took a step forward, which snapped Kakashi out of his daze, "Umm... Sasuke... Umm..."

"Oh for God's sake!" Sasuke finally lost his temper, "Spit it out!"

They stared at him for a second more then, "You have got lipstick all over your face," Tsunade informed him in a blunt, flat-from-shock voice.

It took a moment for that comment to register and in that moment both Naruto and Kakashi had leapt over to his side. Sasuke immediately turned around and tried to run for the door or shatter a wall to make an exit however, Naruto literally wrapped himself around him, pinning Sasuke's arm to his body and grounding him with his considerable weight. He still would have done _something_ if Tsunade hadn't pointed out, "This tower is surrounded on all sides by ANBU at all times, and you're still on probation. Your best bet is to submit without a fuss."

Sasuke bared his teeth in a snarl.

Kakashi leaned in and took his chin in a firm grasp and tilted it with a lot of difficulty as Sasuke was leaning as far from him as possible and had stiffened his neck muscles against the force of Kakashi's fingers. Still, Kakashi managed to bring one half - the interesting half - of his face to his scrutiny, he even uncovered his Sharingan to squint at the lipstick marks on his cheek.

Kakashi then leaned back and rubbed his cheek contemplatively.

"What say you Kakashi?" Tsunade prompted.

"Cherry-luscious lip gloss, Number 97 in the special Kunoichi series. Currently, only three Kunoichi's wear it on a regular basis-"

"Wait," Naruto cut him off.

"How do you know all this?" Sasuke completed his question, both of them had identical looks of suspicion on their faces.

Kakashi ignored them, "And the only one who is currently not on a mission _and _is in regular contact with Sasuke and could have given him this mark is-"

Again, he was cut off, this time by a flushed and panting Sakura who burst through the door, "Hey, everyone, I am sorry I am late. There was an emergency at the hospital and- why are you wrapped around Sasuke-kun, Naruto? ... Why is everyone staring at me like that?"

The three interrogators zoomed their gazes onto Sakura's surprised face and she took a step backward at the intensity of it.

"Uhh.. guys?"

While they were staring at her, Sasuke managed to wiggle his mouth out of Naruto's grasp and shouted, "Sakura, _run_!"

But Sakura hesitated, reluctant to leave Sasuke at the mercy of the three of the most sadistic people that she knew. And yes this did include Naruto because ever since he learnt just how grating his overly enthusiastic personality and obnoxiously loud voice was on the nerves of some people he started to use it just for the pleasure of causing irritation. Specially on Sasuke.

However, this hesitation cost her precious escape time and Kakashi was behind her closing the door with an ominous in the space of a blink.

"Now, Sakura," Kakashi started with a deceptively genial smile, as he placed his hands on her shoulders and steered her forward to stand beside Sasuke and in scrutiny distance of Tsunade, "what is that gloss that you are wearing? It really suits your complexion."

Sakura turned to look at her sensei in bafflement but Sasuke caught her eye, rather, a streak of colour on his cheek, partially obscured by Naruto's hand, caught her eye. And she knew she really should have taken the chance to escape when she had it, they were both now doomed.

* * *

><p>They walked out of the Hokage tower with the same disoriented and horrified expressions as those of War survivors. Confrontations like this had been the exact reason they hadn't come out in the open about their relationship.<p>

First Naruto had wailed on and on about "How could you do this to me Sakura-chaaaaaaaaaaann?!" and then when Tsunade had finally given Sakura permission to knock some sense into him he had sidled upto Sasuke and offered to teach him some 'things' he had learnt from the pervy sage. At this Sakura punched him so hard that he had flown through the window and into the street below.

Next Tsunade had gestured the two to come even forward and they had, tentatively, as she rummaged around in her desk. Finally she produced a scroll from one of the drawers and then opened another one to produce a small cardboard box.

She picked up the scroll and gave it to Sakura who took it with a confused expression on her face. "I had hoped that I wouldn't be giving this to you anytime soon but..." here she let out a world weary sigh that made Sakura almost pity her. Almost. "Anyway, that scroll contains a contraceptive jutsu, learn it and use it, if you have any problems come to me, you understand?"

Sakura's eyes grew wide as her face started to resemble a tomato, Sasuke couldn't help but notice the resemblance with a fondness that seemed to be growing in his heart everyday.

"B-but shi-shishou... we aren't... I mean... not right now.. we don't need-"

She was cut off by Tsunade who understood what her apprentice was saying even through her stutters and was inspecting the two with narrowed eyes and a gaze like an eagle's, "But you spent the last night together didn't you?"

Sakura glanced at Sasuke but averted her gaze as soon as their eyes met, her blush growing in intensity. "Sasuke-kun, j-just crashed at my place last night but n-nothing happened. We.." she hesitated, then glanced at Sasuke once more before continuing with her explanation, "I wasn't sure if... if we would get enough time during the mission to.. you know.. spend together, so I insisted-"

"It was my own choice to stay," Sasuke interrupted her, averting his gaze as a light blush dusted his cheeks and his ears.

"Sasuke-kun.." the name was said reverently and the look that it accompanied was nothing short of worshipful.

It was making Tsunade want to puke. "Enough of this, take it Sakura, I am pretty sure you'll be needing it soon enough and you," she turned her shrewd eyes towards Sasuke this time and gestured towards the box, "Take it. If you are anything like your sensei, you'll need more of them."

Having an idea of what tehy were but being more terrified over the question, '_which sensei is she referring to?'_ he picked up the box and with the air of long suffering and opened it to see, _yup, _they were condoms.

But he remained as stoic as ever unlike Sakura he had slapped her hands to her face to hide her embarrassment.

"Oh and about your mission," Tsunade picked up a scroll from the thousands cluttering her desk and handed it to Kakashi, who had been leaning against the wall all this time, "Don't let these two get away with any hanky-panky on the mission."

"_Shishou!" _Sakura groaned.

Kakashi just smiled back at Tsunade, the slight crinkling of his eyes the only indication of it and took the scroll.

With a wave of her hand, Tsunade dismissed them. Sakura heard her mentor mutter, "They grow so quickly," as she turned her chair and stared out the window in her brooding pose.

They hurried out of the room but their torment didn't end there. Kakashi stopped the two outside and ceremoniously handed a bemused Sasuke a copy of his beloved Icha Icha, "A growing up present if you will. And don't hesitate to ask for any extra information, I'll be happy to provide you with some really good techniques-"

Sasuke punched him but it turned out to be a clone who poof-ed out of existence.

After that they had hurriedly left the Hokage Tower before anyone could accost them.

"You are never wearing that again," Sasuke muttered angrily as they made their way home, "And even if you are, then no coming near ten feet of me."

Sakura instead of being offended or hurt just smiled, now better used to his moods and prickly attitude, "So that means I can be extra near you, when I am not wearing it?" she asked from under her lashes.

Some of the irritation that had been clouding over him lifted, and he smirked, "Hn, you can see when we get home."

* * *

><p>When Tsunade turned back around to look at her desk she noticed that the cardboard box was not on her desk.<p>

"So, we won't be seeing much of those two from now on, huh?" she questioned and smirked.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **This is for the _SasuSaku_ _Month_. **Prompt**: Late.

I know I should be working on Wishes but I am putting it on Hiatus right now. I am really, really sorry!


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